The health impacts of UPF are of growing interest to consumers, health professionals and scientists, as they now account for around 73% of U.S. grocery store products, according to Ravinder Nagpal, gut microbiologist and director of The Gut Biome Lab at Florida State University (FSU).
Presenting the findings of cross-sectional research during IPC (19th International Scientific Conference on Probiotics, Prebiotics, Gut Microbiota and Health) in Kraków (June. 22-24), he revealed new data indicates higher UPF intake correlates with targeted ecological shifts in the gut microbiome.
His study, currently unpublished, recruited 51 FSU college students and used a 24-hour dietary recall questionnaire (ASA24) to divide participants into quartiles corresponding to the percentage of calories consumed from UPF.
Researchers additionally collected stool samples and used Qiagen Powerfecal DNA kits to extract genomic DNA which was sequenced on their Illumina MiSeq system.
The resulting data indicated that higher UPF intake correlated with poorer diet quality, higher sugar intake, lower mycobiome richness, and potentially altered cardiometabolic function.
Researchers discovered a trend between higher UPF intake and higher BMI, as well as elevated HbA1c (glycohemoglobin), indicating higher blood sugar levels and potentially impairing cardiovascular function.
The team was surprised to find that higher UPF intake was not correlated with a collapse of microbiome diversity, but they did find a number of targeted ecological shifts correlating with higher UPF consumption.
For example, researchers noted that diets higher in added sugar and fiber were associated with changes in carbohydrate metabolizing taxa, with Bacteroides and peniphora (oral) positively correlated, and Lachnospiracaceae, Bifidobacterium, and Prevotella_7 (oral) negatively correlated.
Oral Malassezia, Streptococcus, Veillonella and Megasphaera also negatively correlated with increasing UPF intake, while a higher level of added fiber intake appeared to promote the commensal bacteria Lachnospiraceae.
UPF intake across the lifespan
Nagpal said his research team had conducted a similar study in older participants (over 65 years of age) and researchers found that the link between higher UPF intake and lack of magnesium, iron, copper and other nutrients was even stronger in this cohort.
That said, Nagpal argued it is children who tend to be most exposed to UPF and this is the time when nutrition can have the most significant long-term impacts, so his team will next look to conduct research in a younger cohort.
“We will put all this data together to create a full picture of the impact of UPF through the life stages to give us a comprehensive understand of how UPF plays a role in chronic disease risk.”
The authors noted limitations of the study include its cross sectional design, the use of self-reported diet and the NOVA system scoring for UPF intake, which is not indicative of individual ingredients.
Future research at The Gut Biome Lab will look to uncover the impacts of specific ingredients and additives.
“We will look into the exact ingredients lists and the signals tied to specific nutrients, sweeteners, artificial additives and dyes,” Nagpal said.
